Chimpanzees are not like termites. Their large and complex brains are better able to understand concepts such as death, and there is evidence that they experience an emotion similar to grief.
Several species of non-human primates will gather around a member of the community who has just died, and in many cases gently touch the lifeless body. The population usually disperses slowly and regularly: those who were closest to the dead animal stay longer. Jane Goodall observed that an eight-year-old chimpanzee stayed with her mother’s corpse so long that she died.
Other mammals also usually gather around their dead. While doing this, the giraffes shake their necks at the scavengers to keep them away. In India, the bodies of five young elephants were found covered in twigs and leaves, leading some scientists to believe they were buried by other members of the group.
Andre Gonsalvez, a comparative morologist at Kyoto University, cautions against paying too much attention to this story. According to him, the elephants were found in the pit; This means that they could have fallen inside them, and leaves and dirt could have accidentally piled up on the bodies as their families tried to pull them out.
Monceau reminds his readers that animals live in a violent and bloody world where predators attack in the dark of night or appear from unseen heights with their sharp claws.
The violent environment of animal life provides rich conditions for understanding death. Monceau gives the example of a young stag watching a battle between two older stags for power. After their antlers clash several times and the weaker rival fails to rise, the young deer begins to understand the basics of death. If he does not remember this lesson, he will probably have many opportunities to learn it again.
Even if chimpanzees understand the concept of death, it is not as complicated for them as it is for us
Gonsalves isn’t sure if animals learn the meaning of death in their communities, and says many animals eat other animals while they’re still alive. It is not clear if they are trying to cause their death or if they perceive it as a separate state of existence. They might just be trying to get a moving food source into their mouths, like frogs, who stick out their sticky tongues at anything that looks like a moth simply as an instinctive reaction.
Among chimpanzees, acts of brutal violence, including murder, indicate a deeper understanding of death. Chimpanzees, like wolves and lions (and humans), sometimes cooperate to kill rival group members. These attacks may be planned in advance. Two or three males enter an area occupied by another group. They move quickly and cautiously, and even when they pass a food source, they don’t stop to eat it. They choose single targets and coordinate their attacks so that they don’t get hurt themselves. In some cases, the attacking chimpanzees will continue their attacks even after the victim has surrendered, only stopping when the victim stops breathing.
Obviously, even if chimpanzees understand the concept of death, it is not as complex for them as it is for us. Humans know what death is and they know that one day it will come to them.
James Anderson, professor emeritus of Kyoto University and known as the father of comparative mortology, says chimpanzees feel about their own death in a different way than we humans do. Despite thousands of hours of observation, he says, no one has ever seen a chimpanzee attempt suicide. According to Anderson, only an animal that knows it can die tries to bring about its own death. The lack of reliable reports of suicidal behavior in chimpanzees or any other animal suggests that the existential burden of death is uniquely ours, he says.
Of course, Anderson, as well as other scientists specializing in the field of comparative mortality, still cannot provide the final answer. They can tell us that chimpanzees understand death better than termites, but the rest is unknown and may never be revealed. We can only hope that as we continue to study chimpanzees, we will see new behaviors from them that will reveal more of their inner world.
The story of Muni and her baby may be one of these cases. After the zookeepers left Toshi alone, they decided to calm things down. They kept him away from others until the next day. Meanwhile, everything had changed for Mooney.
Muni used to have trouble interacting with other chimps and used to pull the hair of other female chimps tightly during grooming. He often sat too close to them and stared at them inappropriately. The day Toshi returned to the group, Mooney was surrounded by other chimpanzees. When he saw Toshi, he quickly got up and slapped him.
Toshi did not react, and over the next 30 days, she and the other chimps interacted more with Moony. No other chimpanzee experienced such an increase in attention, and almost all chimpanzees participated in this display of attention. They hugged Moony and petted her more, but they didn’t share the attention equally. Some took care of Muni more than others and Toshi took care of him most of all. It seemed that an important topic had been exchanged between these two chimpanzees. A few months later, things in the compound were largely back to normal. Muni was no longer being petted and the males started harassing her again. But Toshi and Mooney often sat together and this close relationship continues to this day.
